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+# Contributing to backoff
+
+Thank you for considering contributing to backoff! We appreciate any help you can offer to make this project better.
+
+## Introduction
+
+backoff is an open source project that aims to provide Function decorations for backoff and retry. We welcome any contributions to the project, whether it's fixing bugs, adding new features, or improving documentation.
+
+Please read this guide carefully before submitting any contributions. By participating in this project, you agree to abide by our [Code of Conduct](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md).
+
+## How to contribute
+
+### Submitting contributions
+
+We accept contributions in the form of pull requests on GitHub. Please make sure that you have read and understood the following guidelines before submitting a pull request:
+
+- backoff follows the [PEP 8 style guide](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/). Please make sure that your code follows these guidelines.
+- Make sure that your code is well-documented and that you have added tests to cover any new functionality you've added.
+- Make sure that your code passes our tests by running `make check` before submitting your pull request.
+- Please create your pull request against the `master` branch.
+
+### Issues
+
+If you find a bug or have an idea for a new feature, please open an issue on GitHub. Please make sure that you have read and understood the following guidelines before opening an issue:
+
+- Check if the issue you're reporting has already been reported.
+- Make sure that you provide as much information as possible about the problem you're reporting, including error messages and steps to reproduce the problem.
+- If you're requesting a new feature, please explain why you think it would be a valuable addition to the project.
+
+## Getting started
+
+To set up the development environment for backoff, you will need to have [Python](https://www.python.org/) and [poetry](https://python-poetry.org/docs/#installation) installed on your machine.
+
+To install the dependencies for backoff, run the following command in the root directory of the project:
+```poetry install```
+
+
+## Where to ask for help
+
+If you have any questions or need help with contributing to backoff, you can reach the maintainers of the project by emailing [email address].
+
+We also encourage you to read through the [documentation](README.rst) and take a look at the [existing issues](https://github.com/litl/backoff/issues) to get a better understanding of the project and where you can help.
+
+Thank you for your interest in contributing to backoff!
+
+## The development workflow
+
+- Fork the repository
+- Clone the repository to your local machine
+- Create a new branch for your changes (optional)
+- Make your changes
+- Commit your changes
+- Push your changes to your fork
+- Submit a pull request to the `master` branch
+
+## Coding standards
+
+backoff follows the [PEP 8 style guide](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/). Please make sure that your code follows these guidelines.